


In The Light

by heartofthesunrise



Category: Led Zeppelin
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 11:57:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2651189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofthesunrise/pseuds/heartofthesunrise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They support each other. They have chemistry. Twelve years between rock's greatest rhythm section.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Light

**1968**

Jonesy’s played with loads of drummers. Every session guy worth his salt, and quite a few less than, not to mention the bands, short stints touring, little groups that fell apart before they got together - the whole gamut.

He’s never heard a sound like this.

He lets his bassline fall on the backbeat, leaving room for the crack of the snare to breathe. Between them they revel in the moments when they both take a beat of rest - the anticipation to come crashing back in at the same time makes Jonesy’s breath catch. As they thunder in under Page’s solo they share a quick smile.

They support each other that way. They have chemistry.  


**1969**

The first US tour is rough. Jonesy notices Bonzo wilting early on.

“You don’t get homesick?” Bonzo asks, tapping ash from the end of his cigarette with his forefinger.

“Bonz, nobody gets homesick like you do,” Jonesy replies. He fidgets the bent up cap of his beer a moment before taking a drink. “I miss it, yeah.”

“You don’t get…” Bonzo squints at him a moment, turns back to face the hotel parking lot, spread out below their little balcony. “Lonely?”

Jonesy laughs. “Hardly get a moment to myself, don’t I, you lot always fucking about.”

“You know what I mean.” Bonzo rolls his eyes.

“Yeah,” Jonesy says. “Yeah, I do.”

**1971**

It’s so fucking bright up there. He’s not even in the spotlight most of the time and he’s still squinting to catch Page’s cues, the little nods exchanged between the four of them. He hangs back by Bonzo, awash in the flood from the footlights.

When they get offstage, trying to ignore shouts for another encore, Jonesy has to blink the phosphenes out of his eyes for minutes. Walking to where the cars are waiting he leans a little on Bonzo, squeezing his eyes shut until the lights stop dancing under his eyelids.

In the back of the limo Bonzo pours himself a vodka and passes another to Jonesy. “You were on it tonight,” he says.

Jonesy smiles. “You, too. Big crowd, huh?”

Bonzo frowns. He’s not fond, Jonesy knows, of huge audiences. The drummer taps his knuckles gently against the hard line of Jonesy’s jaw. “Worth it,” he says.

**1973**

Headley Grange is drizzly and cold and miserable. Jonesy is exhausted and they’ve barely even unpacked. Sitting on the porch steps with a lager in one hand and a cigarette - mostly ash, by now - in the other, he watches the rain as dusk darkens the clouds.

Bonzo slumps next to him, reaching over to ruffle his newly-short hair. “You look awful, Jones.”

Raising his eyebrows, Jonesy murmurs, “I’m just… Tired.”

Leaning to press the side of his arm against Jonesy’s for a moment, Bonzo says, “We all are.”

Jonesy turns to look at him, their faces close. He searches the drummer’s eyes a moment before speaking. “I’ve had a job offer,” he says shortly. “I don’t think I’m going to make this album.”

Bonzo flinches a little and Jonesy is sure the stab of guilt lancing through him must show on his face because Bonzo reaches over again to touch his cheek, tentative and fragile.

Jonesy leans his face into the curve of Bonzo’s palm, eyes closed, and they stay like that a moment. He covers Bonzo’s big hand with his own slim fingers and keeps it there.

**1974**

“Knew you’d be back.”

“No you didn’t.” Jonesy smirks. “You needn’t have worried, though, Page knows plenty of bass players.” He leans against the wall, sitting on the floor of the parlor that joins their rooms at Headley Grange. The lamps are low but a fire crackles quietly beneath the mantle, warding off the worst of the January chill.

“Oh, shut up,” Bonzo says, taking a long drink. “We wouldn’t have carried on without you, and you know it.” He watches Jonesy’s smirk widen. “Don’t be smug, it’s not attractive.” It is, though, terribly so.

“Shh,” Jonesy murmurs against the mouth of his beer bottle. Bonzo stares as he runs the lip of the bottle against the pout of his lower lip before drinking.

By the time they’ve killed the second sixpack Jonesy is sprawled out on the floor, the back of his head resting on Bonzo’s thigh, giggling. Bonzo strokes his hair. “Can I ask you something?”

Jonesy smiles placidly and nods as best he can.

“Why’d you come back?”

He’s quiet for a long moment. “Woulda missed you,” he says, finally. “Mo told me I’d be miserable, too, and she… Tends to be right.” He reaches one hand upward to thump his thumb against Bonzo’s cheekbone. “Woulda missed you,” he says, again.

Bonzo reaches up to take Jonesy’s hand and hold it to his face. Jonesy blinks slowly, lashes soft and pretty, throwing half-moon shadows over the sharp angles of his cheekbones. He drags himself up to sit close, his hand still on Bonzo’s face. In the lamplight and February chill of Headley Grange they sit together on the edge of a precipice, neither daring to move.

Finally Bonzo pulls Jonesy’s hand away from his cheek, cradling it in his own square, calloused palm. He looks at the way Jonesy’s fingers splay out against his, small and delicate but strong, like the rest of him. He traces the topography of Jonesy’s knuckles with his thumb.

“Bonz,” Jonesy says quietly. Bonzo looks up and meets his eyes, finally, trying to swallow around the lump in his throat. Wondering where his beer went. The air around them hums and thrums with the steady rhythm that beats between them, always. Jonesy curls his fingers around Bonzo’s wrist and tugs a bit, drawing himself closer.

Bonzo doesn’t think to close his eyes, at first, when Jonesy kisses him. He’s disbelieving, even as Jonesy’s firm, insistent mouth presses against his. His free hand reaches up on instinct to cup the hinge of Jonesy’s jaw, the side of his throat where his pulse is fluttering, a hummingbird beating its wings.

When he does, finally, allow himself to kiss back, it’s with none of the traits he’s known for but all of the ones which are strongest within him: gentleness and receptiveness; he tilts his head and leans back a bit, drawing Jonesy forward, sliding the hand on his face down to his waist to hold him. He is afraid to push, afraid to test the gossamer-thin connection between them, afraid Jonesy will back away, sloppily drunk, upset. Bonzo is deeply afraid that if Jonesy opens his eyes and sees him there he will cry. Bonzo has never seen Jonesy cry but something in his chest snags uncomfortably at the thought.

“Hey,” he says against Jonesy’s mouth, the better part of him winning out. “Hey, Jonesy, you’re drunk.”

Jonesy draws back. “I know,” he says. A moment. “I know what I’m doing, Bonz.”

Bonzo’s hand still rests on the thin ridge of Jonesy’s hip. He rubs a circle into it with his thumb. “Are you sure?”

Jonesy leans forward to kiss him again, winding his arm around Bonzo’s neck. There is a clash of teeth and tongues and Jonesy is kissing him openmouthed, his breath hot and damp and malty from the beer. Bonzo’s hand drifts to grip him by the shoulder blade - suddenly everything about Jonesy seems angular and grabbable, and Bonzo helps himself to every curve and crest of Jonesy’s body, one palm scraping down his breastbone to the waistband of his jeans.

Arching into Bonzo’s touch, Jonesy makes a low whimpering sound in the back of his throat. Bonzo kisses him deeply, tries to catch that sound and hold it between them where they’re locked at the lips. He presses the flat of his fingers to Jonesy’s belly, then slides his hand downward to tug at the button of his jeans. “Is this,” he says, muffled by Jonesy’s mouth, “okay?”

Bonzo panics for a second when Jonesy draws his hands away, until the bassist is straddling his lap, unbuttoning his own shirt with a clumsy haste he’s never seen before. Bonzo bats Jonesy’s hands out of the way and yanks the shirt off of him, palming over the achingly hot skin of his chest, pulling him close to kiss him, gentle and reverent.

“Please,” Jonesy says into the meniscus of his lips. “Want you.”

Bonzo tugs his t-shirt over his head and tosses it aside, plastering himself to Jonesy, pushing him to the floor and kissing over his jaw. He sucks a lovebite into the delicate skin underneath Jonesy’s left ear and is rewarded with a needy keening - Jonesy’s fingers scrabble for purchase on Bonzo’s broad shoulders before gripping him tight and hauling him up for a long, slow kiss. Their bare chests press together, sweat-slick. The lamplight glints on the pricks of sweat on Jonesy’s face, in his eyes, blue like he’s never seen them.

Bonzo runs a hand down Jonesy’s side and squeezes his hip. He rakes his palm over the strain of Jonesy’s arousal. Jonesy gasps, his low voice jumping to make a high, lonesome sound as his hips twitch up against Bonzo’s touch.

“Nhh, Bonz,” he says, trembling under the teasing assault of Bonzo’s fingers. His left hand moves to Bonzo’s back, scraping blunt nails against him, making him gasp. His right hand slides between them to pull at the fly of Bonzo’s trousers.

Bonzo takes the hint and lifts his hips a little, just enough that they can wrestle one another out of their jeans, panting and gasping at the sudden exposure. Bonzo sits back on his heels, one hand on Jonesy’s thigh, drinking him in. He’s pale and thin, the grooves of his ribs carving shadows into his skin with each ragged breath, the rise and fall of his chest almost hypnotic. The swollen head of his cock lays against his stomach, tip smeared with precome.

Jonesy raises himself onto his elbows, face flushed. “Are you freaking out?” he asks. Bonzo gives his thigh a squeeze and shakes his head.

“I’m in,” he says, voice soft. “If you are.”

Fragile fingers wrap around his wrist, pull him down to press, skin on skin, against the trembling body beneath him. His cock slides against the flat, sweaty surface of Jonesy’s abdomen, and he closes his eyes, exhaling a “fuck” before curling his hand under Jonesy’s neck and kissing him, soft, tender. He rocks his hips gently forward, earning a gravelly curse against his mouth.

Jonesy puts a hand on Bonzo’s hip, digs his fingers in and moves against him. His back arches up from the floor and Bonzo hooks his free arm under, holding him close, trailing a row of kisses from the hinge of his jaw to his adams apple to the hollow of his throat. He’s unsure how to proceed and stays there a moment, nips lightly at the tender flesh. He squeezes Jonesy a little in a way he hopes is reassuring, or at least says some of the things he’s not sure how to vocalise.

“Bonz, ah - “ Jonesy gasps. “Not to… Not to kill the mood or anything but how do you…” He trails off a second, biting his lip. “How should we do this?”

Bonzo pulls back and looks at him, brushing his thumb against his cheekbone. Jonesy is flushed and breathless, hair mussed, lips rosy from kissing. Bonzo smiles and smoothes the hair away from Jonesy’s forehead, and they both break into nervous laughter at the sudden, sharp shock of sobering perspective.

“Look,” Bonzo says, glancing down at the apex where their bodies meet. “I’d fuck you right here if you wanted me to -” Jonesy’s face reddens even further “- but I don’t want to hurt you.” Jonesy swallows hard.

“You won’t,” he says after a moment.

They kiss again and Bonzo pushes himself up, off Jonesy, to his feet. “Be right back,” he says, dizzy at the sudden change, and stumbles in the direction of the attached bathroom. Bonzo doesn’t know much about how to fuck a man but he’s pretty sure they’ll need something to ease the way. He fumbles with a handful of travel-size bottles, squinting to read the labels, until he comes up with some lotion, which seems like the best option.

When he gets back Jonesy is where he left him, propped up on his elbows, naked and blushed with arousal. He’s chewing on his bottom lip, and he looks up when Bonzo shuffles back in.

“You alright?” Bonzo asks. He sits down beside Jonesy.

“Just thinking.” Jonesy pauses, then reaches up to touch Bonzo’s face. “Kiss me.”

He does without a thought. It is intimate and needy and messy, one hand caught in the sweat-frizzed hair at the nape of Jonesy’s neck, the other groping down his chest like a starfish on a coral reef. He manoeuvres himself closer and grasps Jonesy’s cock roughly in his weathered palm, making him whimper, an openmouthed whine against his lips.

“Okay,” he says, more to himself than anything. “Okay lay back.”

He does, and Bonzo kneels in front of him, popping the top off the bottle of lotion and coating his fingers. “Just, you know,” Bonzo says, easing the tip of one finger over the cleft of Jonesy’s ass. “Tell me if you need me to stop.”

Jonesy swallows and nods and closes his eyes, and Bonzo is glad for that because he can feel himself blushing all over. He pushes his finger slowly in, draws it out, pushes it in again and crooks it experimentally. Jonesy’s breath hitches. “You’ve done this before?” he asks through gritted teeth.

Bonzo crooks his finger again, then carefully adds another. “With women,” he says. Jonesy’s eyes squeeze further shut and his upper lip curls back with a gasp. Bonzo stills the movement of his right hand and takes hold of Jonesy’s cock with his left. He scissors his fingers back and forth, then pushes them further in. “Easy, Jones,” he says.

He spends long, aching minutes preparing Jonesy open. The firelight casts an orange glow on Jonesy’s face as his expression slowly slips from one of pain to one of blissed out arousal. He spreads his legs further, breath coming in humid gasps from between pursed lips. Desperate for release.

“Please,” he whispers, bucking his hips into Bonzo’s gentle touch. “John, please.”

Bonzo slides his fingers out of Jonesy and pulls up into his lap, lubing himself up quickly. “Kiss me,” he says, breathless, frantic, wrapping his arm around Jonesy’s waist and lowering him carefully onto his cock. Jonesy’s head falls back and his adams apple jumps in his throat as he tries to stay relaxed, his breath coming in heaving gasps. “Kiss me,” Bonzo says again, and Jonesy falls into his arms, sloppy and undone and needy, their teeth clashing together as they kiss.

Jonesy feels like he’s underwater, every sense muted and dulled by the hot ache of pain. He is mildly, disconnectedly surprised to find there is very little rhythm to their actions. He kisses Bonzo like a teenager, spitty and aggressive and wanting. He wraps his arms loosely around Bonzo’s neck and presses his sweaty forehead against the drummer’s sweaty shoulder, inhaling raggedly, taking Bonzo in to the base of his cock.

“Can we stay like this for a minute?” he wheezes. His voice sounds very far away.

“We can stop, if you want.” Every instinct in Bonzo is telling him to thrust up, to push Jonesy down on the floor and fuck him, to spend himself mercilessly into the fragile body in his arms. He looks down at Jonesy - the curve of his back where his spine justs out in knots, the ropy muscles in his legs quivering from the effort of staying still. “We should stop. I’m hurting you.”

“Bonz it’s okay,” he says. He sounds weak and dazed but his hips rock forward and Bonzo forgets all of his good intentions, lost in desperate need for more of that feeling. He cradles the curve of Jonesy’s hip with one hand and gets him moving, slowly at first. “Nhhh,” he whimpers against Bonzo’s shoulder. His right hand detaches from its grip on Bonzo’s back and slides down over his chest, then moves away completely. Bonzo realizes with a little thrill he can feel shoot from his stomach straight to his cock that Jonesy is touching himself.

“That’s it,” he says. He holds onto the curviest part of Jonesy’s ass and speeds him up a little, exhaling loudly, trying not to come then and there. “You’re doing great, you feel so good, _fuck_.”

Jonesy laughs, still weak and broken sounding. “You sound like a gym coach, shut up.”

“How many,” Bonzo starts, panting against Jonesy’s ear. “How many gym coaches have fucked you, then?”

“Shut up.”

Bonzo kisses the pale pink shell of Jonesy’s ear, down the side of his neck. Their speed increases, the sweaty slap of skin on skin almost deafening in the quiet room.

“John I’m close,” Bonzo whispers, his grip tightening on Jonesy’s hip. “Should I pull out, or…”

“Don’t,” Jonesy says. He raises his head and kisses Bonzo softly, wiped out, sweaty hair clinging to his forehead. “I want to feel you.” Something tugs in Bonzo’s abdomen, and his eyes find Jonesy’s, lust-clouded and ice blue. He hangs his gaze there until he reaches his peak, coming with shuddering thrusts, burying himself deep in Jonesy, eyes snapped shut. He stays rigid, riding out the aftershock of his orgasm, holding onto Jonesy tight enough to bruise, until he feels a spattering of warm droplets on his own chest and knows that Jonesy has gotten there, too.

They slump together, unmoving, arms around one another. Finally Jonesy pulls back, lifts himself tenderly off Bonzo’s spent cock, to collapse against the sofa. “Hey,” he says, eyes closed.

Bonzo crawls towards him, pulling him close. “Hey,” he says back.

**1977**

“We don’t have to do this here,” Bonzo says, leaning against the grimy wall of the backstage utility closet.

“Yes, we do,” Jonesy says curtly, pressing him back and unzipping his jeans with practiced ease. “I’m not going back to the hotel, I probably won’t see you until the next show. I want you.”

He kneels and pushes Bonzo’s jeans down, freeing his erection and taking it in hand.

“You could, you know, travel with us sometimes.”

“I hate it. You know that.”

Bonzo tries to argue but Jonesy takes his cock in his mouth and any words he has are interrupted by a long, drawn-out moan. Jonesy has gotten good at this. His first few times giving head were stuttering and awkward but, true to his nature, he set his mind to it and mastered it quickly. He presses the flat of his tongue against the slit of Bonzo’s cock and licks.

“Christ,” he moans. “Jonesy what are we even doing here?”

Jonesy pulls away and eyes him skeptically. “I told you to stop asking that three years ago.” He goes back to work and Bonzo thumps his head against the wall, reaching down to grab a fistful of Jonesy’s hair. He fucks his mouth with slow, lazy thrusts, knowing full well that Jonesy can take whatever he has to give.

When Bonzo comes Jonesy dutifully swallows, wiping his chin and smirking as Bonzo pulls his jeans back up. “Come here,” he says, beckoning. Bonzo presses him to the wall with his whole body, kissing his neck, stroking him off roughly. Jonesy leaves the closet first, to avoid suspicion, he says, and by the time Bonzo follows him he’s already gotten in his car and driven off, god knows where.

Bonzo goes to an afterparty and gets wasted with Jimmy. He takes a pretty, blonde waitress back to his hotel suite. He tries to fuck her, but he’s too drunk and already spent to reach climax. After she leaves he heaves the television set out the window, and lights a cigarette, and wills himself not to cry.

**1979**

“You remember when you were done?” Bonzo asks. He and Jonesy lay in the half-light of their rented suite - someplace near the rehearsal space, just to crash while they tried to pull the band together, they both told their wives.

“Yeah,” Jonesy says. He smokes a cigarette, stretching languidly against Bonzo.

“I might be.”

“I know.” Neither of them wants to admit how headless they are without Jimmy, or how impossibly hard the last two years have been, or how absolutely shit the shows at Knebworth were. They curl around each other. The hollow space between their bodies still feels like home. 

**1980**

July. The gigs have been, actually, okay. Jimmy has cleaned up a little, enough to put a little showmanship back into the performances. Jonesy is almost optimistic. He and Bonzo sit in the shade of a large apple tree, far out on Bonzo’s property, away from prying eyes.

“Remember when I kissed you the first time,” Jonesy says. He leans against Bonzo’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Bonzo replies.

“Do you regret it?”

Bonzo thinks for a minute. “I haven’t, yet,” he says. “Do you?”

“Nah.” Jonesy shields his eyes against the glare of the setting sun. “Can I say something and not have you make fun of me for it?”

“Probably not,” Bonzo admits, “But you should tell me anyway.”

“I love you.”

Bonzo watches the distant orchards turn rose gold, backlit by the sunset, just kissing the lip of the horizon. He turns to Jonesy, his shorn hair like spun flax, haloed in the slanting light. Takes him by the chin and kisses him, familiar and warm.

“I love you, too, John.”

**End.**


End file.
